Enough

I have been reading a book called Doughnut Economics. It speaks about how Economics and the unsustainable goal of continual economic growth pervades our lives, often in an unconscious way. Forward and upward is emphasised, and we have this in our general language … we see ‘getting ahead’, ‘moving forward’, ‘onward and upward’ as positive … and there is a pervasive negative connotation around ‘being at a standstill’, and ‘going backwards’.

“The quest for ‘more’ deprives us of the joy of ‘enough’.”

Donella Meadows (one of the lead authors of a report entitled ‘Limits of Growth’ said in 1990 “Growth is one of the stupidest purposes ever invented by any culture, we’ve got to have an enough”.

In our yoga too we can have this idea that we need to continually increase what we can accomplish in terms of shape and complexity on the mat.

Yoga can become a quest for more postures, more flexibility, and as such it can, if extreme, become hurtful, not helpful. Let’s invite pauses, and yes, even backing up, into enough … enough challenge, enough flexibility … enough effort, inside ourselves and in our yoga.